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Anok-Imaskar
| established = (Kujawa claims the throne) | start event = | start date = | event1 = | date1 = | event2 = | date2 = | event3 = | date3 = | event4 = | date4 = | disestablished = (Death of Kujawa) | end event = | end date = | predecessor = Imaskar | successor = Ra-Khati, Chu'ta Te, Mai Yuan, Kao Shan | population1 = | popyear1 = | population2 = | popyear2 = | population3 = | popyear3 = | population4 = | popyear4 = | population5 = | popyear5 = | poptable = | ruler1 = | ruleryear1 = | ruler2 = | ruleryear2 = | ruler3 = | ruleryear3 = | ruler4 = | ruleryear4 = | ruler5 = | ruleryear5 = | rulertable = | histrefs = | usethe = | useon = | inhabitants = | locations = | organizations = | settlements = | roads = | mountains = | forests = | events = | food and drink = | items = }} Anok-Imaskar was an empire that existed in ancient Kara-Tur, under the reign of Emperor Kujawa. It was one of the three successor states of the Imaskar Empire after it fell in , the others being Deep Imaskar and Solon. Later scholars would mark the Anok-Imaskar period as the First Age of Shou Lung, as it was a precursor to the later Shou Lung empire. History Unlike Imaskar's vassals, Durpar and Gundavar, which descended into barbarism, and the Raurin, which became a desert wasteland, the eastern provinces of Imaskar emerged relatively unscathed from the destruction of the western empire. The mountainous Khati province and the flatter Katakoro province were both protected from the Mulan rebellion by distance and the natural defenses provided by the Katakoro Shan. Within a year of Imaskar's fall, in , the surviving artificer Kujawa—who carried one of the False Imaskarcana, Dhonas's Shroud—claimed the Dragon Throne in the Khati city of Thakos, the former capital of Upper Imaskar. With that, he declared himself Emperor and founded a new realm, Anok-Imaskar. Anok-Imaskar was prosperous and quickly spread east, north, and south. It traded with its fellow successor state Solon to the west. Eventually, circa , Kujawa decided to found a second capital city to better govern the new southern lands his nation had claimed. He built it on a mountain plateau further south in the Shao Mountains, east of the Sempadan Forest. The new capital was called Tempat Larang. Unfortunately, the nearby volcano Mount Bakos erupted in ,The Grand History of the Realms uses the name "Mount Bakos" but this name does not appear in any other source. However, Ronin Challenge tells that Tempat Larang was destroyed by the volcano "Mount Tengkorak", which is located near the ruins of Tempat Larang on the accompanying map. While it is likely that "Bakos" was the Roushoum name for the volcano, this cannot be corroborated. Nevertheless, for simplicity, this article assumes this is the case. covering Tempat Larang in ash and lava, and the city had to be evacuated. Over the following decades, the empire's southwestern lands were also abandoned. Emperor Kujawa repeated the history of his former peers in Imaskar when he died fighting the Immortal Nung Chiang, in the form of a t'ien lung dragon, in .The Grand History of the Realms page 33 says Kujawa died in combat with "the celestial dragon T'ien Lung". However, a "t'ien lung" is a generic type of oriental dragon with a name meaning "celestial dragon"; this name may be in error. Ronin Challenge tells that the Immortal Nung Chiang opposed the empire's expansion into Tempat Larang, even triggering the Mount Tengkorak eruption. Furthermore, Nung Chiang manifests as a t'ien lung in the module, and is mentioned to also appear as a spirit dragon. Page 67 presents a story by Awagi Nukichi retelling the fall of Emperor Tan Chin (there called Joon Tsao Choo) at Kuo Meilan to an unnamed "spirit dragon" and appends a disaster striking Tempat Larang (presumably the volcano in the same book) a few years afterward. However, Grand History later retconned this, placing the destruction of Tempat Larang within the time of the newly invented Anok-Imaskar, Kujawa's death 170 years later, and Tan Chin's empire centuries after that, with Tan Chin defeated by Chih Shih as normal. Thus, in-universe, Awagi's story appears to be a mistaken conflation of the falls of both empires and it's not clear what it might say about Kujawa and Anok-Imaskar, and who killed Kujawa. While it is possible that Nung Chiang is T'ien Lung, no source confirms that Nung Chiang killed any emperor. Page 33 of The Grand History of the Realms also notes that Chan Cheng was the first of the Nine Immortals, suggesting Nung Chiang wasn't an Immortal previously. Nevertheless, the apparent intention is that Nung Chiang is T'ien Lung and this is assumed here for simplicity. His death caused the empire to collapse, dividing into a number of warring states, including Chu'ta Te, Kao Shan, Mai Yuan, and Ra-Khati. Geography At its height around , Anok-Imaskar stretched from the Celestial Sea in the north to the Segara Sea in the south (a large portion of what was later Shou Lung and T'u Lung). It did not spread west, owing to claims by Solon on the lands south of the Raurinshield Mountains. Among others, it included the lands of Khati (the realm that would later be known as Ra-Khati) and Katakoro (the later Katakoro Plateau); Chu'ta Te (later Chukei) Kao Shan, and Mai Yuan (which would all be provinces of Shou Lung); and the southern city of Tempat Larang.In order to cover such far-flung regions of Kara-Tur, Anok-Imaskar likely covered more lands than what is mentioned in Grand History (only a few are given as examples). However, these are as yet unknown. Appendix Notes References Category:Countries Category:Empires Category:Locations in Kara-Tur Category:Locations on Toril Category:Locations